The violin and cello in this new video are made by Antonio Stradivarius and the viola by Girolamo Amati. Who says a Strad makes no difference?
The players are the Amati String Trio – Gil Sharon: violin “Vesuvio” 1727 di Antonio Stradivari; Ron Ephrat: viola fratelli Amati “Stauffer” 1615; Alexander Hulshoff: violoncello “Stauffer” ex Cristiani 1700 di Antonio Stradivari.
William Weaver, who was the foremost translator of modern Italian literature, was much appreciated by the music community for his English editions of documentary lives of Verdi and Puccini, as well as versions of many opera librettos.
Weaver, who translated Calvino, Eco, Moravia and Silone, has died, at 90.
The world of books is preparing to mourn Doris Lessing, whose death has just been announced. Doris Lessing won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007, the oldest writer to do so. This was her reaction.
Born in Iran, she grew up in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and spent her adult life in England, living in West Hampstead, where she is reported to have died peacefully in her sleep.
She wrote more than 50 books, as well as two operas with Philip Glass: The Making of the Representative for Planet 8 (1986) and The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five (1997).
pictures (c)Lebrecht Music&Arts
He played with Toscanini and Miles Davis before he was 30. Now 88, the old bridge-builder still has lots to say. Read here.
First Mariss Jansons pulled out at the last minute of the Concertgebouw’s China tour.
Now the Rotterdam Philharmonic has been hit by Yannick Nezet-Séguin’s withdrawal from this week’s trip to Linz, Vienna and St Petersburg.
Is there some viral Dutch bug we should know about?
Latest on Mariss: He has rejoined the orchestra in Japan.
On December 8, 1963, Ivry Gitlis became the first Israeli musician to give an official concert in the Soviet Union. Fifty years later, on December 8, 2013, Ivry (aged 91) will return to the Philharmonic Hall in St Petersburg – only this time he’s going mob-handed.
The musicians who will accompany him are Martha Argerich and Elisha Abas.
Be there, if you can. If you’re a friend of Ivry’s, he’ll ask you to play.
Popular media have been running a scare story that a Spanish pianist ‘might’ go to jail for inflicting noise pollution on a neighbour with excessive practising.
At today’s court session in Gerona, the prosecution lowered its sentence demand from 7 1/2 years to 20 months. Since Laia Martin has no previous criminal record, she cannot go to jail under Spanish law if the sentence is less than two years – even if she is convicted of the offence.
The court has retired to consider its verdict. Read an account in El Pais, just in.
End of story.
Mary Ella McKinney of Little Rock, Arkansas, took lessons from the great man in Chicago around 1937, when she was eight years old. She went on to play in the San Antonio Symphony. There can’t be many left who received tips from the mighty bedazzler.
Obituary here.
He was due to appear with the Orchestra Mozart. Santa Cecilia will substitute. See here.
This is Rory Macdonald, deputising for Mariss Jansons in Beijing.
A Chinese conductor, Lv Jia, replaced Jansons for Ein Heldenleben.
We have tried to help raise awareness of the terrible state of the buildings associated with Romania’s foremost composer, Georges Enescu. It’s a battle worth fighting. Bucharest is sensitive to its cultural image. Today, a battery of composers and musicologists have launched a campaign in Germany to save the Enescu heritage. Thanks to Victor Eskenasy for the following English précis of his article:
Thirteen German and Romanian composers and musicologists, at a Symposium organized by the Music Department of „Carl von Osietzky” University at Oldenburg, have signed an open letter addressed to the Romanian Minister of Culture, urging him to save the abandoned George Enescu’s Memorial House from Mihăileni, Botosani county.
The signatories call the present state of the composer’s house ‘disastrous and shameful’ and remind the Romanian authorities that the National Commission of Historical Monuments has already classified the House as part of Romania patrimony. They urge the Romanian Minister to sign the official order needed for the start of the restoration procedures.
Meanwhile, they manifest strong concern about the constant degradation of other George Enescu’s Memorial Houses as the National Museum in Bucharest, never restored after decades of Communist regime. Despite an urgent procedure for saving the Mihaileni House in January 2013 and an international and local press campaign to avoid the demolition of the monument, Romanian Cultural officials have not reacted publicly till now. The open letter can be seen here.
We are informed by disaffected staff that the popular composer John Rutter has resigned as a Patron of the Purcell School over the decision to abolish the post of Head of Music and to dismiss Quentin Poole. Rutter’s name has been removed from the website.
Approaches have been made to Sir Simon Rattle to reconsider his presidency of the school.
Next Tuesday Poole’s partner, Ian Macmillan, will present his case for unfair dismissal to the Watford Employment Tribunal.
